Population genetics of transposable elements.

Abstract

Transposable elements are DNA sequences that can move or duplicatively transpose on the chromosome. A simple model of transposable elements was studied, and the frequency spectrum, allelism, and identity coefficients at equilibrium were obtained. In the analyses, the two cases of asexual haploid with no recombination and diploid with free recombination were treated separately. It was shown that the multiple allele theory of population genetics is applicable to the problems of frequency spectrum and allelism. On the other hand, identity coefficients may be formulated analogously to the treatment of concerted evolution of multigene families. Results indicate that, except for allelic identity, the model of transposable elements and that of multigene families predict similar values of identity coefficients.